Place:Miscou, Gloucester, New Brunswick, Canada

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Miscou Island (French: Île Miscou) is an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the northeastern tip of Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada.

It is separated from neighbouring and larger Lamèque Island to the southwest by the Miscou Channel with both islands forming Miscou Harbour. Lamèque Island and Miscou Island separate Chaleur Bay from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. (Wikipedia does not give the area of either island, but there is a map in the Miscou Island article.)

The Miscou Channel is bridged between the community of Little Shippegan on Lamèque Island to the community of Miscou Harbour on Miscou Island by the 2000 metre Miscou Island Bridge which opened in 1996, replacing a cable ferry and physically connecting Route 113.

The Miscou Island area was one of the first areas explored by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and was a fishing base for Basque fishermen in the same period. A Jesuit mission was established at Miscou Harbour in 1634. It was an important, although seasonal, port of commerce in its early years of European exploration of Canada.

The first permanent settler was John Campbell who emigrated from Scotland and moved there around 1817. Soon after came Robert Harper, John Marks, Thomas Cowan and Andrew Wilson, the first 3 of which married Campbell's daughters. They were followed by fishermen from the Isle of Jersey and then Acadians who settled on arable lands.

Miscou had a population of 585 full-time residents in 2011. The majority (Francophones) speak French as a first language. About 20 percent of the population list English as their first language.

The major industry is fishing, primarily lobster and herring. Unlike neighbouring areas the peat moss on the island has not been harvested and is left in its natural state. The island is also known for the Miscou Island Lighthouse, which was built in 1856 and is located at the northeastern tip of the island. The lighthouse was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974.

Research Tips

• New Brunswick Provincial Archives. This is the introductory page. The tabs will lead you to more precise material.
• The FamilySearch wiki. This lists the availability of vital statistics indexes for New Brunswick.
• New Brunswick GenWeb. A round-up of a lot of genealogical information at the province, county and parish level. Lists of cemeteries and monumental inscriptions can be found here.
• The Provincial Archives website titled The Placenames of New Brunswick has maps of all of its parishes and descriptions of some communities within them. This site contains "cadastral" maps for each parish illustrating the grantee’s name for land granted by the province. These maps are cumulative, showing all grants regardless of date.
• Microfilm images of all Canadian censuses 1851-1911 are online at Library and Archives Canada, as well as at FamilySearch and Ancestry. The 1921 census appears to be available only at Ancestry.
• The CanGenealogy page for New Brunswick. An overview of available online sources with links written by Dave Obee.
• More possibilities can be found by googling "New Brunswick province family history" and investigating the results.
• The word "rencensement", found in Sources, is French for "census".